BMW’s full-color head-up display could replace the instrument panel

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BMW’s next-generation head-up display is now full-color and provides enough information floating above the hood that it almost replaces the dashboard. BMW says the HUD improves safety because it halves the time drivers need to look to the display and absorb the information — and better yet, this $1,300 feature is moving down BMW’s line with the next-generation BMW 3 Series arriving in February.

BMW’s new HUD displays a navigation screen, speed and cruise control settings, and warnings from BMW’s suite of driver aids: lane departure warning, night vision pedestrian recognition, rear-end collision warning, and adaptive cruise control following distance. The navigation display is halfway between a directional arrow and the full moving map in the center stack. On a multi-line interstate, it shows the number of through lanes and exit lanes, the name of the next turn or exit, and the distance to the next route intersection both as text and as a graphical countdown thermometer. On BMW’s sporty M series cars, it’s also likely to show the tachometer and gear selection. On European cars, it shows speed limit information provided by the lane departure warning camera reading passing signs. (BMW says our speed signs lack the uniformity of European signs, so we’re out of luck for now.)

With an automotive HUD, the information display appears to float just above the hood, at the bottom of the driver’s line of sight. It doesn’t block the view of anything important like, say, oncoming traffic. Actually, the image never leaves the cockpit. In this enhanced version, an intense light source passes through a thin-film transistor (TFT, what’s also on a flat panel display) and is directed to the base of the windshield via specially shaped mirrors. A thin, partially reflective foil reflects the image into the driver’s line of sight. It auto-adjusts for outside light and can be raised or lowered to suit the height and preferences of drivers. Only the driver sees the HUD.

With a typical instrument panel display, BMW says it takes about one second for the average driver to look down, refocus from distance to near vision, scan the instruments, process the information, and look back up. At highway speeds, in one second, the car travels one-third the length of a football field. With a HUD, BMW says, the process takes less than half a second and the driver is still watching the road — and the display appears to be farther away than the instrument panel, so there’s no refocusing. Older drivers won’t need reading glasses to see the HUD.

BMW compares the new HUD to the simpler head-up display on the Eurofighter jet. That’s monochrome, not as bright, and requires a separate reflective panel in the pilot’s line of sight, rather than using the windscreen. It does, however, let you shoot at stuff that gets in your way. Drivers cut off by people doing barely the speed limit in the passing lane might find this feature useful.

The full-color head-up display is on BMW’s mid-size and larger cars: 5 Series, 6 Series, and 7 Series, and will be offered on the sixth-generation BMW 3 Series that arrives in February. Baby boomers downsizing from bigger cars can still have their favorite tech gadgets such as adaptive cruise control. And BMW can enjoy the healther margins that come from options and accessories.

On aircraft, HUDs date to the 1950s. Among cars, Oldsmobile in 1988 and then Cadillac offered HUDs that embedded small CRTs (traditional video display tubes) in the already-crowded instrument panel. BMW’s first HUD arrived in 1984, an Osram device with a resolution of 128×128 pixels. The red and green OLED pixels allowed for a limited color spectrum: red, green and (by mixing) orange. The new display appears to be VGA-level (640×480) resolution. As HUDs reach and pass VGA, they can take on more and more of the functionality of the instrument panel and center stack display.

Actually, driving it is better than instruments since your eye focus is the same distance as the objects in the road and it is far less distracting and safer. The photo is taken at a too low angle as the HuD height can be adjusted from showing a few inches above the hood to lower even. Give it a try, you will think how on earth did I live without it :-)

Screw that! Replace the mirrors with 3 displays at the top of the window.

1. Increases gas mileage hugely because those mirrors hanging off the side kill gas mileage.
2. Eliminates people having to look side to side etc. which they seem incapable of doing.
3. Puts it in their direct field of view so they’ll actually see people behind them while they’re blocking traffic.

I could care less if the speedo etc. are up on the windshield. It’s the mirrors that matter.

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